


Waiting for the Videogram

by inheritanceofgeek



Category: Alan Bennett - Fandom, Talking Heads - Bennett, Talking Heads - Fandom
Genre: Alan Bennett - Freeform, Gen, Waiting for the telegram, talking heads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 06:56:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inheritanceofgeek/pseuds/inheritanceofgeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After suffering from a stroke Vinyetta is sent to live in an Old People's home. An attempt to expand upon Bennett's original themes of Old Age and Homosexuality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for the Videogram

**Author's Note:**

> Produced this for my ALevels last year. AQA have this wonderful habit of asking you to write Fanfiction! So I chose to do a Space Age/Alien AU of my favourite monologue: Waiting for the Telegram. I had a word limit, so there are some things I had wanted to include but hadn't, but for now, enjoy?

Throughout the history of the universe and its sentient inhabitants two things remain constant 1) that everything that starts must come to an end, one way or the other and 2) that no matter how perfect your little society may seem, there will always be those who are shoved under the metaphorical rug. Take planet Petrichor, a lovely little planet that took part in the third galactic war of 5042. Those who fought in it and gave the ultimate sacrifice had their names engraved on the moons of remembrance. Their widows, families, sweet hearts sent nothing but a cold circuited video-gram with the automated news report of the ending of their loved one’s life. The pre-recorded voice of the Empress saying the empty words “We’re sorry for your loss”. 

The supposedly lucky ones who managed to survive being shot at by laser canons and bio-bombs exploding in their faces were given a quick showy parade of global pride and then, forty years down the line, they get shoved into dingy, beige “Rest” Homes. Well. That’s what they call them. They are more like prisons, but nice prisons, ones where you can feel like you’re doing the best for them, where you can pretend to care and really just not want to see them cluttering up the town centre with their withered skin and slow movements. But this is where this story is set and this is who it concerns. Not the glamorous Neko-Cat-Bar on Fellisitus 9 where all your fantasies can some true. Nor a long time ago in a galaxy so far away where a rebellion took place. No. In this galaxy. In this era. On Petrichor. A violet-skinned local sat stuck in a hover chair as she waited for all the suns to set on her life. Trapped forever inside Mount Sunshine Retirement Home.

“You can put that away” said Vinyetta taking in Grobe’s dangling genitals.  
“Oh, come on Vinny, I’ve got a mansion out in Hankler.”  
“That’s no excuse” she rebutted  
“It’s got its own Slime-Pool” he said waggling his rather short antenna in a way which he hoped to be provocative, but really just looked like he was signalling an incoming Star Ship. “The answer’s still no.” Grobes simply sighed and waddled off, suit trousers still hanging round his ankles as he posed the same question to a snoozing Mrs Hillft, whose only interest was if he knew if they were having baked Gorglepod for dinner and then to Renezna, who simply wanted to know if he was her Shuttlepod Pilot. At this point, a large stern looking blue skinned female by the name of Nurse Bapply came stomping in, her normally curved antenna standing straight and quivering with rage. “Grobes, what have I told you about shoving your reproductive organs in peoples faces. It isn’t 5012 you know!” Grobes reluctantly pulled up his trousers and slouched out of the room, looking very much like a stroppy teenager and not a 70 year old who had won the Douglass prize for scientific discovery (for his paper on how light speed travel could be made more efficient if you used the skin of the Oshowott for insulation). Bapply sighed and her antenna softened slightly, she turned to Vinyetta and addressed her one to one. “Vinyetta, tell me, after seeing the penis” Vinyetta blanched slightly but Bapply chose to ignore it “would you like some counselling?”  
“I’m 95,” she answered  
“That doesn’t matter, you’re still flying the flag of gender. And seeing this Penis” Vinyetta blanched again “Now Vinyetta, that’s its name get used to it, it must have affected you in some way.”  
“Well I don’t know about that, but a nice cup of hot Grog would do the trick.”

It is a common misconception of those who have not reached the age of retirement that those who have suddenly lose all interest in the prospect of sex and suddenly find themselves getting their dopamine kicks out of knitting or pot making. This is of course a load of steaming Tulmanium Astropuff dung. At the age of 95 Vinyetta had seen more than her fair share of penises and enjoyed each one thoroughly. And whilst she knew that in her current state she was unlikely to be getting some any time soon, she still felt that she could enjoy what she saw, if what she saw pleased her. And nothing pleased her more than the sight of Nurse Ferenzo with a mug of perfectly brewed Grog accompanied by a freshly roasted Wozza. 

Nurse Ferenzo was not your average Pertichorian. His ocean blue skin, piercing grey eyes and strong muscular physique (not to mention his long gently spiralling antenna!) had won him many an admirer, both male and female. Of course in this modern age the majority of people do not care whether you are Heterosexual or Homosexual. Just so long as you are dating within your own species. “Here you go my lovely” Said Ferenzo crouching down to give Vinyetta her Grog “And after your great shock” he said theatrically “I’ve got you a little treat” and winking he produced the Wozza. “Ah!” cried Vinyetta “You’re a…” she faltered, unable to find the words “a…” she slammed her fist down on the bar of her chair in frustration. Strokes are nasty. They come unexpected in the middle of the night and take everything away from you. Your home; your freedom; your mobility, even your words. Sadly no one has found a way of stopping the little Lamias even in the 51st Century.  
“Come now Vinny” said Ferenzo calmly and kindly “what’s Nurse Verbat always saying to do?” and he put on a highly exaggerated version of Verbat’s teaching voice “describe Vinyetta, you need to describe”.  
“beautiful, with them wings, from heaven, play the harp… angel”  
Ferenzo grinned “Thank you very much Vinny, but I’m really not.”  
“Yes you are! Stop being such a floock. You’re going to make some Petrichorian an excellent, what-do-you-call-it, Life Partner one day.”  
“Weather’s blonking awful.” he replied.

“I think today, Vinyetta, we shall work on names some more.” Said Nurse Verbat “Could you tell me the names of those in the room?” and Vinyetta rattled them off, Renezna (still waiting for her Shuttlepod to take her to her parents place in 5018); Qwen, Grobes (trousers on this time); Jaque and… she couldn’t remember, however hard she tried she couldn’t remember its name “Come now, describe Vinyetta, you need to describe!”  
“The Android” Nurse Verbat looked shocked for a moment then adopted the tone of a teacher telling off a naughty child “Vinyetta, you know jolly well you can’t say that. It’s better to say the life form in the purple smock” Vinyetta rolled her eyes. 

Some bright spark at the council had the brilliant idea that children should learn more about the past by speaking to the elderly. Therefore, each year the youth of Petrichor is forced into sitting in awkward silence with the inmates of the local rest home, in the hope that they will learn something about the past to report back to their teachers, who already know all there is to know about the events in living memory. Sadly for Vinyetta, she was to be the primary source for one such unlucky school boy. “So.” He said pulling a second-hand I-Learn from a bag. “What was it like?”  
“What?”  
“The past. Was it better or worse?”  
“Well. I was better. I could walk then. Dance then and….” She trailed off lost in the grey mists of her memory.  
“Mister!” he called to Ferenzo. “Is she ok?”  
“Don’t mind her kid, she’s had a stroke. Why don’t you talk to Miss Trillter over there, she’s always keen to talk about the good old days.”  
“Possum.” He replied and switched targets.  
“Vinny” said Francis softly, gently shaking her hand. “Vinny, are you ok?”  
“Mmm?” she replied  
“Thought we’d lost you for a minute there, you ok sweetheart?”  
“Yeah. Just thinking.”  
“About what?”  
“The past. All that happened. All the good people” She started to tear up “Don’t you…” her breathing was heavy “Don’t you go…” She shook “you know. Uniforms, flags, ceremony. For the good of the galaxy, never forget. I don’t want you to….”  
“Don’t worry.” Said Ferenzo “It’s not war that gets you now days.” He embraced her and set her chairs co-ordinates so as he could change her soiled clothes. 

Ferenzo didn’t show up to work the next day. Or the next. Or the day after that. When Vinyetta asked where he was, they just told her he was ill. “Well, shouldn’t we do something then, send him flowers or… those sweet things, brown, taste nice, Jocken”  
“Not on the likes of him.” They replied. She didn’t find out the truth until her 96th birthday. She didn’t realise it was her birthday until they came in with the cake ablaze with candles. (Interestingly enough, cake is used throughout the galaxy to celebrate birth. It is a universal image for happiness. This is why the image of a cake in the rain is the trans-galactic symbol for depression.) On Vinyetta’s birthday, the cake was moist and delicious. But it really should have been sitting outside in the middle of a Vertruvian tsunami. “How’s Ferenzo?” she asked again “Why isn’t he here?”  
“Hasn’t anyone told you?” replied Nurse Bapply  
“No”  
“He’s dead. The Europian Flu. It was probably for the best though.”  
“For the best? How can you say that! How is a good man like that dying for the best?” and then more to herself than anyone else “He would have made some Petrichorian a grand Life Partner…” There was an awkward silence. Then one of the snide new nurses spitefully added “Yeah well, it wasn’t Petrichorians was it.” Vinyetta looked up. “What do you mean?” The silence became more awkward.  
“Well. It was Humans wasn’t it. The dirty little crooger had it coming if you ask me” and he stomped off. Secretly, he had been in love with Ferenzo, and was very angry at never being in with a chance. Of course this just proves that he never, in fact, was in love. But life-forms can be funny like that. “Look on the Brightside Vinny” soothed Bapply “In four more years you’ll be getting a video-gram from the Emperor! Won’t that be nice?” she patted her hand with all the appearance of Ferenzo’s kindness, but none of it’s heart. “Oh Nurse Bapply” said Vinyetta as she looked around the room of complete strangers who were at her birthday party “it just can’t come soon enough.”


End file.
